Dark Brightness

My teenage children delight in the vulgarity of South Park. The fact I find the show crude, it’s blasphemy far to simplistic, and it not satirical enough to criticize our postmodern hypocrises (of course) encourages them to continue.

They are aware it is satire. I can walk away, as I do to almost all the products of both the disney channel and comedy central. I am dyspeptic, judgmental and of middle years.

But Viacom are inconsistent  If you offend all Christians, most Buddhists, and all scientologists, do a show about Muhammad and Aliesha. Cartman can call him a pervert and pedophile — which is a good description of having sex with a nine year old (at that age,, “marraige” is no excuse). I am aware that the South Park writers would be consistent — but the management are a bunch of cowards.

Voltaire is not in charge of Viacom. So if you're interested in working as a part-time censor for Comedy Central, all you need is a violent temperament, a demented ideology and a poorly constructed website.

The popular animated show “South Park” — gloriously vulgar, sharply satirical and, one suspects, offensive to vast swaths of the viewing public — is, if nothing else, impressive in its evenhandedness.

Yet, in this week's episode, a depiction of the Prophet Muhammad in a bear costume (don't ask) was blocked with the word “censored” so the channel could avoid hurting the feelings of a few virtual New York City Jihadists.

This homegrown radical group called Revolution Muslim (no thanks), warned the show's architects, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, and they would “probably wind up like Theo van Gogh” because of the depiction in the episode.

Van Gogh, for those unaware, was a Dutch filmmaker who documented (along with feminist Ayaan Hirsi Ali) the abuse of women in the Islamic world. Consequently, Ali now lives in hiding and van Gogh was last seen dead in the middle of an Amsterdam street — a thoughtful dissertation on Islamic tolerance affixed to his chest with a knife. (If only the Dutch were less warlike, obviously, this never would have happened.)

Comedy Central initially banned “South Park” from showing any depictions of Muhammad in 2006, as Muslims consider a physical representation of the prophet blasphemous.

There is an appropriate response to this: Watch something else.

via Harsanyi: Next on Cowardly Central – The Denver Post.